While this final segment is the least satisfying, it’s impossible not to be impressed with what Ma accomplishes in the film’s brisk 80 minutes.

Miss Sloane is one of the year’s handful of great actress vehicles, and Chastain takes this role by the throat, smashes it against the wall about ten times and then devours it while it’s still quivering. You want to see star acting on a grand scale? Miss Sloane is the movie to see.

It is a mess of a film, botched but also misconceived, with a central performance by Natalie Portman that evokes nothing about Jackie Kennedy, beyond the stylish clothes and the secret smoking.

Too many moments elicit a polite half chuckle, when the screenwriters are trying for uproarious laughter. But it benefits from an excellent cast, who seem to be all in. And whenever there’s a stretch of extended mediocrity, it’s almost always saved by an unexpected moment of politically incorrect inspiration.

It is an original and might give new parents a valuable reminder: Environment matters in child rearing.

It’s ambitious, and has a great ’90s indie feel.

Ovation has a self-involved air that may be off-putting to those who don’t feel deeply immersed in that world. You may get the sense you’ve wandered into a super-intense acting class or someone’s therapy session — a hothouse atmosphere that’s oppressive.

Affleck is magnificent, but the movie is something less than that, because it can’t completely overcome some built-in challenges.

This is an ambitious movie that didn’t come quite together in the editing room.

Rules Don’t Apply feels unbalanced in terms of story, and it has a big sag in the middle. But the good things in it are so good that they make it a fairly worthwhile experience.

He )Robert Zemeckis) creates a movie that is old-fashioned in every possible good way, but that in no way seems passe or cliched.

A fall-off in writing is part of the problem, but I think a more important issue is the replacement of Terry Zwigoff (“Crumb”) as director. Zwigoff’s humor is razor-sharp and incisive, qualities missing from Bad Santa 2.

A slow start keeps Moana from reaching “Frozen” or “Beauty and the Beast” levels of excellence. But the comic self-awareness, engaging songs and a fulfilling finish are enough to merit a strong recommendation.

Verhoeven creates an elegant frame for his lead actress and lets her fill it, and what we end up with is Huppert’s best collaboration with a director since the death of Claude Chabrol.

Eventually, the plot feels more perfunctory than palpable, but Watkins is careful not to drag things out. All in all, we don’t mind being taken along for the ride, yet in the end, we’re ready to disembark.

Cute little fellow, but unfortunately, the film in which he stars is little more than catnip.

There’s a mood, a feeling about life, that pervades Nocturnal Animals, one that’s expressed in visual terms.

Teller’s work is the film’s soul, and he completely convinces us of Vinny’s affability, flaws and steely determination. The performance has intelligent touches, some of them comic — such as the hint that Vinny’s rehab battle is heroic but also a bit goofy. It’s the kind of thing that first-rate actors can pull off.

Taking place mostly over the course of a single day, it’s a smart and languorous film that finds time to luxuriate in conversations and to create a feeling for small-town American life.

While The Edge of Seventeen does deliver on the promise of being funny, it’s mostly dead serious and deserving of respect and attention. It’s far from the usual thing — and better than the usual thing.

It’s a solid first step into the magical world of the familiar. Escapist entertainment for crowds that prefer to know their destination in advance.

The Love Witch has an air of geeky satire. The presentational acting style is so self-aware you almost expect the cast to occasionally underline a joke by turning toward the camera and winking at the audience (no one does, though).

The atmosphere of Loving, the feeling it evokes, is the film’s most distinct quality. The mood is somber and restrained, and the characters — not just the principals, but the people they know — seem beaten down.

Arrival works as mainstream entertainment, but includes hallmarks of the “2001: A Space Odyssey”/“Silent Running” era of artist-driven science fiction. It has Hollywood stars, but makes great effort to strip them of any false glamour. The film is tightly calibrated, but leaves things open to interpretation, for discussion on the ride home and beyond.

Almost Christmas would have been less clunky if it had focused more on the family’s loss of its matriarch, and allowed the comic elements to naturally arise as the characters struggle with the new family dynamic. Instead, we get too many slapstick set pieces and extraneous subplots that bog down the proceedings.

Keith Maitland’s powerful and emotional documentary Tower — easily one of the best films of the year — takes a novel approach for a nonfiction film: Animation.

Hacksaw Ridge is one of the best films of 2016. And the victory is all the more sweet for Gibson in that he succeeds on his own weird terms.

Timberlake is the secret weapon, making the crankiest troll also the most appealing.

Cumberbatch fleshes out a portrait of uncompromised and resolute selfhood. In that way, he carries us and the movie over some long stretches of blue-screen emptiness.

The result is a beautiful void, a structureless emptiness buoyed by some good scenes and performances.

Aquarius has a lot of things on its mind, and sometimes the plot machinations in the last third seem a tad heavy-handed, almost as if they’re being piled upon a delicate character sketch.

It’s an intricate thriller about a con game, but so loaded with wicked humor and sensual appeal — ravishing cinematography, high-temperature eroticism — that for long stretches viewers might forget there’s any plot at all.

Every year, we get only a few of these, movies that come out of nowhere, that are different, unexpected and wonderfully right. Moonlight is that kind of movie, one of the gems of 2016.

It is a satisfying but thoroughly idiotic film, in which relationships make no sense, character motivations change on a dime, and Tom Hanks has weird hair. But brainless as it is, it’s artful. It is a well-made bit of silliness, a piece of construction optimally designed to maintain audience interest while garnering absolutely no one’s respect.

Do Not Resist amounts to little more than a grab bag. Viewers looking for depth will have to find it elsewhere.

The final frames, which hark back to an iconic TV show, are audacious, yet like everything else in this movie, they are skillfully unadorned.

We end up with a movie in which it becomes very possible to respect the intent and yet be frustrated by the result.

An earnest film, a well-acted film and, despite the presence of a star director, a generous film. As a director, McGregor is good to his co-stars and highlights them throughout. But the energy drops out of the last third of the picture, and takes with it much of its aura of importance.

Neither funny nor exciting. It’s at best incongruous, the kind of incongruity that seems delightful on the page but not in practice.

There’s nothing unique about the setup. But Flanagan and Howard’s script has charming touches, wringing humor out of characters rather than gags. Even the retro opening title card foretells its self-aware sense of humor.

This is a superior and assured action movie, a quality product that makes the case for a franchise.

The Idol, a feel-good film about a Palestinian boy’s improbable ascent to pop stardom, takes place mostly in Gaza, a place not associated with feeling good. But out of the war rubble emerges one of the most irresistible movies of the year.

It’s a character study of a character who isn’t worth studying. It’s a revenge movie, but when the revenge comes, the only person you feel like getting even with is the screenwriter.

As a child, I worried about nuclear war. It never occurred to me that I should have been worried about a nuclear accident.

Though our put-upon hero’s gradual realization that he has much to live for is obvious from the get-go, it still is a pleasant journey from pawn to king — spiritually speaking, of course.

A victory lap of a comedy film taken by a star whose talent continues to propel his career, but doesn’t seem particularly hungry.

Much of it is enjoyable and has the aura of a superior action film, but it collapses into a laughable wreck and ultimately reveals itself as a mild waste of two hours.

It’s a satisfying drama that inverts the usual way of building interest and suspense. Instead of wondering what’s going to happen, we sit with the knowledge and wait for every character to react to what we already know.

It's a so-so film with jarring tone changes and a plot that sputters before a predictable ending. But there are moments of inspiration and authenticity.

Weisz’s conviction, passion and galvanizing outrage drive Denial. For a Jewish academic, this was no intellectual exercise, and Weisz lets us see it. Between the frames, Weisz likewise assures us that Denial is no routine movie for a Jewish actress.

The most exciting contribution to The Girl on the Train is that of Wilson. It’s exciting because it shows that it’s possible, despite the odds, for a distinctive screenwriter to express herself consistently and dominate a film. And it’s exciting because this is a unique voice, and very much a woman’s voice, that our cinema needs.

As a film, The Birth of a Nation is raw and ungainly, but it’s definitely alive.

What results isn’t a straight autobiography, obviously, but rather the autobiography of a career and, most importantly, the autobiography of a spirit.

Director Brendan Toller uses archive footage and droll animation that keep the stories revelatory and entertaining.

A Burton film that mines the romantic fable elements of “Edward Scissorhands,” while pushing the disturbing limits of a film that seems to be marketed for small children, even if it isn’t really intended for them.

Masterminds delivers for the most part. Kate McKinnon, as David’s wife, does her usual frozen-face, crazy-eyed weird thing, but this time she’s funny.

It has scale, spectacle and a cast of good actors who seem to believe in what they’re doing. But the movie springs to life only in spurts.

Like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s stellar “The Lego Movie,” the filmmakers work with the confidence that if a joke fails, the one that follows a few seconds later will redeem the scene.

Go in with low expectations and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Despite highly enjoyable moments and the welcome presence of Kate Winslet, even sympathetic viewers will be put off by the movie’s bewildering variety of genres and tones.

Perhaps it helps to think of Goat as a horror movie. There is a genre of horror film known as torture porn — films that revel in graphic depictions of torture, violence and sadism, mostly to defenseless victims. Think of Goat as hazing porn.

This time, it seems as if there’s a little less magic in the woods.

Moviegoers will love or hate Oliver Stone and his politics until the end of time. With well-made movies such as Snowden, though, his skill as a filmmaker becomes much harder for the detractors to debate.

The exquisitely shot Demon is not gory or particularly scary, but it has its fair share of chills.

About the only time the film emerges from its stupor is when Lewis bares his fangs and shows us that Max has a bilious, acerbic side.

Although we know the outcome, Silicon Cowboys feels like a suspense thriller.

Quintana brings a stunning visual flair to his film, and Sheen has a fine moment when he ponders the thin line between miracles and tragedies. But we keep waiting for the film to wash over us, and it never quite does.

The film is sprinkled with “f” bombs, which fails to disguise that the enterprise is based on a surprisingly dated notion of what’s racy. Also, you simply may not find Bridget quite as adorable as the filmmaker’s clearly believe her to be.

An engaging, absorbing portrait of a moment in time when the Beatles were at their zenith.

Even to those familiar with the bizarre affair, “JT Leroy” offers some new insights, not only because of the presence of Albert and her home movies, but also because of a treasure trove of phone recordings between JT and numerous luminaries.

It doesn’t really add up, either as a psychological portrait or moral commentary.

The movie is entertaining, although true Trekkies will probably find out nothing new about the man with the pointed ears.

It’s bland. It’s benign.

In the end, Sully is a broadly crowd-pleasing movie, at a time when we could use the straight-forward entertainment.

Ultimately, the film is carried by Skarsgard in yet another triumph in a Norwegian film.

It has plenty of emotionally satisfying scenes and its share of humorous moments, but the drama and comedy mix like oil and water.

As much as Fassbender, Vikander and Rachel Weisz, the feelings of isolation, despair and self-reproach deserve top billing in The Light Between Oceans.

The film tries to split the difference between thoughtful science fiction and action-driven horror, and blows the chance to truly succeed at either. Morgan is an enjoyable enough experience in the moment, but it never quite coalesces.

In short, a nice, predictable film unlikely to linger in the memory.

A Tale of Love and Darkness is a dead film, an eminently worthy corpse.

Ixcanul provides a window into a culture that we rarely see. But it’s not just an anthropological study — it has a powerful story to tell, too.

Starts as a taut thriller, but loses some momentum before picking up again, and Klaussner’s fine performance keeps us on edge through most of the film, even though we know the result.

Southside With You proves once and for all that a romantic film doesn’t rely on suspense. We know these people are getting together. What holds us to our seats is wondering how it will happen.

A film that can’t decide whether it wants to be “Raging Bull” or “Remember the Titans.” In the end, it’s a little too much of both.

It’s best to accept Don’t Breathe as simply a piece of lowdown fun — connoisseurs of creepy and sometimes brutal chills will have a good time.

The problem comes down to this: If you take the spirituality out of Ben-Hur, you take the Ben-Hur out of Ben-Hur.

What Laika achieves is an effective mixture of hyper-real and hyper-stylized, a combination that keeps “Kubo” appealing to the eye for audiences of all ages. If the film’s plotting and dialogue had measured up, “Kubo” might have been a masterpiece.

Herzog is not able to go into a lot of depth. That keeps Lo and Behold from greatness, but it is nonetheless compelling, because of the way Herzog organizes the material.

A solid piece of in-the-moment entertainment that fails in its attempt to be something more.

The movie is as interesting as spying on your neighbors during the most interesting 85 minutes of their lives.

In the end, what makes Equity an intelligent and honest movie keeps it from being a total crowd-pleaser.

What Mackenzie has crafted here is a crowd-pleaser with undeniable art-house elements.

There should be more American family movies like Pete’s Dragon. Since there aren’t, we should get behind this one.

Sausage Party is definitely not for everyone. Its well-earned R rating guarantees that. But what might prove the often hilarious and startlingly intelligent film’s greatest bar to blockbuster status is the very thing that sets it apart: its ideas.

It’s mildly amusing when it should be funny, sentimental when it should be deep and all too easy when it should be unsettling. It’s still some kind of success, but a modest one.

A film that is at its best onstage.

Like the best wines and the best films, there’s a complexity to the finish, so that it reverberates with meanings beyond the obvious. Indignation has the disconcerting quality of truth and is an altogether adult piece of work.

It’s a lot of ground to cover, but if the movie fails to plumb the depth of Lear’s mystery, it succeeds in being an entertaining look at an influential figure.